What evidence exists on the impact of agricultural practices in fruit orchards on biodiversity indicator species groups? A systematic map protocol

Abstract

Background: Biodiversity loss, due in part to intensification of agriculture, has become a global issue. In this context, fruit producers are looking for nature-friendly production methods. Their aim is to reduce intensive pesticide use and to enhance orchard management in terms of optimising habitats for beneficial organisms. However, fruit production, especially in low-stem orchards, requires several interventions over the course of the year (tillage, thinning, mowing, disking, spraying, fertilisation, etc.), each of them representing a disturbance. Surprisingly, international journals seem to contain few publications on the impact of most of these practices (except pesticides) on biodiversity in general and beneficial organisms in particular, even though the benefits of predators to control pests have been known for decades. However, an increasing number of studies have been published in the past 10 years, corroborating the importance that biodiversity has gained as a topic in life cycle assessment. In this context, an expert system that considers the impact of individual farming activities on a set of biodiversity indicators (flora of crops and grasslands, birds, mammals, amphibians, slugs and snails, spiders, carabids, butterflies, wild bees, and grasshoppers) is to be extended to practices in low-stem and high-stem orchards. We therefore intend to conduct a systematic map to assess what evidence exists on the impact of agricultural practices in fruit orchards on biodiversity indicator species groups. Methods and output:By gathering this information, we aim (a) to assess the state of research on discrete indicators and/or practices, (b) to identify literature relevant for assessing production impact and habitat suitability and (c) to provide a wide-ranging overview of existing evidence and its transfer to extension services and public perception. A literature search in scientific journals, agronomy magazines and the internet will therefore be performed in English, German and French. Following article screening, included articles will be recorded and coded (per the results of a limited study quality assessment). The resulting database and maps will be presented along with descriptive statistics of the distribution and abundance of evidence across interventions and outcomes.

Extracting and modeling geographic information from scientific articles

“…Orchards : This corpus consists of articles relating to fruit orchards, collected to conduct a meta-analysis on the impact of agricultural practices on biodiversity [ 40 ], with an intended focus on orchards in a Mediterranean climate. We obtained an early, minimally-triaged collection of articles to develop our methods.…”

What evidence exists on the impact of agricultural practices in fruit orchards on biodiversity? A systematic map

“…When progressing with the literature search and the evaluation of the findings, we realised that, considering the wide range of different research fields, the scheduled methods as described in the protocol [25] had to be amended and adapted. A first major change was the extension of the eligibility key elements (see "Eligibility criteria" section).…”

“…Because search functionalities vary across most publishing houses, the search strings shown below were subject to slight modifications [25]. As far as possible, the search was restricted to title and abstract, but on most websites a search of the full text appeared necessary.…”

“…to show the extent and distribution of research on impacts of agricultural practices in fruit orchards on biodiversity ISG), a validity assessment of individual articles was implemented. This assessment was for a systematic mapping and thus not as thorough as for a systematic review [25]. Although it sufficed for a swift preselection of the literature (because it reflects a relevance of the articles with regard to the map's intent), it was not used in further synthesis.…”

“…To improve the classification and ease the use of this information in later reviews, e.g. for similar processes or future extensions of the expert system described above, we decided to develop a systematic map (Additional files 1, 2) [25].…”